We pulled up to Animal Kingdom Lodge to find Tricia, her family and TWO Walt Disney World VIP Guides! Apparently, they weren’t any vans large enough to accommodate our group of 9, so we needed two vehicles which then meant we were gifted a second VIP Guide. Major Pixie Dust for sure!
Chris and Jocelyn were absolutely perfect for all of us right from the start. Jocelyn took the 4 (yes, 4) teenage girls in her SUV while Chris took the 4 adults and Mikey, our 10 year old, in his SUV. We headed backstage, inside Animal Kingdom, straight to Pandora!
First stop, the bathroom- not because we had to, but because we could. This was a running theme for the day. While we were waiting, Chris pointed out the mountain range looking a bit similar to a particularly loved Avenger…
Then it was on to the Navi River Journey- which we have all rode, but all love. So much technology and traditional animatronics on display…
Next, Flight of Passage. Now, it is very important to note VIP Guides, even TWO of them do NOT equal front of the line access. The guides act as human Fast Passes for us and on this very crowded day, the Flight of Passage line grew to over 4 hours when we were there. One of our guides led us in the Fast Pass line and the second was always behind us.
Neither my kids nor Mike have ridden Flight of Passage before. I have, twice. My goal was to sit between them and possibly never ride this again. The motion just gets me, and at over 4 minutes long- it’s just too long. That said- all 4 of my family members got off saying this was the best attraction they have ever ridden and can totally understand the hype and it is well deserved. Now, how do I not ride this again with them? We shall see. Just not today. 😉
Both Jocelyn and Chris would point out tidbits of trivia and little hidden gems along the way. As we were exiting, they pointed out this neat, almost hidden Mickey of handprints…
James Cameron, Joe Rohde, and John Landau. I have ridden this twice before and completely missed that!
Next was Kilamanjaro Safari, which was neat for me as I haven’t ridden this ride in the day time in quite some time and it was great. We even got to see Stella, the baby elephant!
From the safari we headed to Expedition Everest- with one of the BEST PhotoPass pictures of the day…
Now we were HUNGRY. It was almost noon so we headed over to Restaurantosaurus as they have a menu that everyone will be able to find something plus an allergy friendly menu for Mikey (who has a tree nut and peanut allergy).
After lunch we headed on a quick spin on Dinosaur (Jocelyn and Chris actually had a separate entrance for this attraction which was super cool) before heading to our next park!
